Bringing visual elements to a story for the first time or illustrating a well-known subject can be a daunting task for even the most experienced illustrators, and this year, Alta Journal’s contributors did not disappoint. Below are only some of our favorite featured images from 2023; you’ll find matadoras, the tree at the core of Los Angeles, a confounding mailman, and even the beloved big cat P-22. To commemorate this year, our illustrators share their inspiration, design choices, and creative processes that brought our issues and online stories to life.
STEVE CARROLL, WRITE. ILLUSTRATIONS, ISSUE 25
“The common ground that applies to all of the Write. portraits are the subtly distorted features, which help capture a likeness. This is developed using outlines and crosshatched strokes. As for their eight backgrounds, they are consistently different! Dark or light, linear or grain effect, they’re all complementary to the main subject in the foreground.”
On Herman Melville, “Unexpectedly, the writing in the background that displays the lyrics to ‘Gimme Shelter’ in the style of Melville proved tricky. Being left-handed, I found the traditional cursive method contrary to my way of pushing a pen across the page.”
On Dave Eggers, “Unlike Melville, there are many photos of a beardless Eggers, wearing different expressions. Deciding whether to go for the confident look with eyes half-closed or wide open in delight can be tortuous. It’s as if you’re looking at different people. In the end, I went for the trusting look, placing him and his smile in the basement surrounded by hundreds of books, journals, and magazine issues.”
VICTOR JUHASZ, “FICTION: ‘THE MAILMAN,’” ISSUE 25
“‘Are you a man, or are you a mouse?’ I relied on this cliche when thinking how to connect the illustrations with a visual leitmotif. The narrator is caught in a losing war between his innate sense of weakness, which a mailman notes and verbalizes in their first encounter, and an equally oppressive need to prove his manliness through progressively inept attempts at violent behavior. This culminates in his final encounter with the mailman and his embarrassing failure to follow through. I used shadows to illustrate the narrator’s self-perception in the middle two illustrations, bookended by visual depictions of him as a mouse. There was also another recurring image in the story of yellow eyes, and I made use of that as a leitmotif through the series of illustrations, becoming almost transcendent in the final illustration.”
CHRIS SICKELS, “A SACRED SYCAMORE’S STORY REVEALS A CITY’S HISTORY,” ISSUE 24
“I was immediately drawn to how the story of the sacred sycamore tree known as El Aliso is told through a reverse chronological timeline. Researching visual references is where I started: Discovering paintings that depicted the willow-branch structures, the beehive-shaped homes of the Kizh ancestors. Sifting through old photographs and documents online that depicted the brewery in different stages of expansion. Even finding the earliest known photograph of Los Angeles circa early 1860s that has El Aliso towering in the distant landscape. Including contemporary photos of Ernest Perez Teutimez Salas, chief and spiritual leader of the Kizh tribe, holding an abalone shell perched on a deer antler.
“All of this research adds to a visual vocabulary that I could pull from in order to respectfully illustrate memories that are not mine. It was a tricky line to walk, and I wanted to not only do the story justice but visually tell a story without getting in the way.
“D.J. Waldie’s line, ‘Places that are lost are the most precisely located. They’re found in memory,’ struck me in particular.
“Special thank you to creative director John Goecke for his trust and confidence.”
ANITA KUNZ, “ANAÏS NIN’S DECADE-LONG ADVENTURE IN BICOASTAL BIGAMY,” ISSUE 24
“During the pandemic, I came up with an idea to paint portraits of remarkable women, many of whom have been overlooked. So far, I’ve painted 420 portraits of these extraordinary women (originalsisters.com). So this assignment was absolutely perfect. I knew about Anaïs Nin, of course, but had no idea how interesting she actually was. How on earth did she manage to navigate her complicated life? It seems her story asks more questions than it answers.”
LAURA PÉREZ, “‘LOOK OUT OR YOU’LL BE POISONED,’” ISSUE 23
“From the beginning, I felt affinity with the story, framed in a line of mystery, suspense, and investigation. So I came up with a style in which the color black would combine well with softer colors, to generate contrasts, just as it happens in the story. The settings are key to understanding the story, and so they appear in the drawings, trying to create simple but complex images, which represent the complexity of the mystery.”
MARK SMITH, “NO PITY,” ISSUE 23
“With a character called WTF Chuck, mixed in with a classic American muscle car, this was always going to be a fun job to work on. One potential stumbling block for the drawing was getting a likeness of Nick Haas. I couldn’t find much reference for him online, but, from what I did find, he looked enough like Lemmy from Motörhead for me to use a bit of artistic license (and a pair of sunglasses) to get close enough. The scenes were actually quite easy to come up with; really interesting characters and lots of action is a great recipe for illustration. I really felt like I could go to town with these. The broken-window image probably took the longest to complete, but I think it’s my favorite. I wanted it to feel like part of Regan’s world got shattered when that car was stolen. It was slightly more tricky finding a way of showing the loss of the car for the opening image, but once I’d cracked the composition, the concept fell into place nicely, with just the tire marks left on the road where the car once was.”
HOKYOUNG KIM, “THE BULLFIGHTER DRAWS HER SWORD,” ISSUE 23
“The main aspect I aimed to depict in the illustrations was reminiscence. I applied warm tones and soft lighting for this purpose and also used the color red to signify the red cape that the matadora holds. It was a challenge for me since it was my first time drawing a face this large and with less shadow, but I wanted to push myself to show the matadora’s confidence. It was worth trying it.”
ZOE MATTHIESSEN, “P-22’S LIFE IN L.A.,” ISSUE 23
“I was thrilled to receive this assignment and worked on it with tears in my eyes. It is a heartbreaking narrative from the perspective of P-22, Hollywood’s beloved mountain lion who, against all odds, crossed two terrifying freeways to claim a home in Griffith Park. For a decade, his epic struggle for survival was closely monitored, and along the way he captivated the hearts and imagination of millions who were fascinated by his adventures. Though he was resilient, he did not survive getting hit by a car and met his caregivers one final time. In P-22’s honor, a wildlife crossing is currently under construction—a beautiful idea that is long overdue and one I tried to capture in my illustration while paying tribute to the brave puma who inspired it. Many thanks to John Goecke for this challenging and meaningful assignment!”
JAMES RANSOME, “THE SEARCH FOR MARDOU FOX,” ISSUE 23
“I must say how exciting it is to have my illustration chosen as one of the magazine’s favorites! I am aware of all the amazing illustrations published in the magazine, so this is a big honor. My illustration for ‘The Search for Mardou Fox’ came at a particularly interesting time.
“I received an email from creative director John Goecke just days before my wife and I were about to head off on a series of speaking engagements. And we planned to end our traveling with a restful two-week residency at the Illustration Institute on Peaks Island off the coast of Maine. John asked if I could create an illustration of Alene Lee, the real woman behind Jack Kerouac’s fictional character Mardou Fox. I agreed, but I would need an extra few days to complete the assignment. I looked forward to revisiting the Beat Generation and the Beatniks and the writing of Jack Kerouac.
“That extra time didn’t mean that I would be back in the comfort of my Rhinebeck, New York, studio to complete the artwork, though. Instead, I made the illustration in a beautiful, spacious studio at the Illustration Institute on Peaks Island.
“But once I finished, I realized that I didn’t have a scanner, and neither did the institute, meaning I wasn’t able to scan the art to email to the magazine. We were saved when we recalled a couple on the island who were designers-illustrators and who agreed to let me use their scanner. But after invading their home-studio, we left only to discover that the image had not downloaded onto my laptop! So we had to interrupt them again. Those are my first memories of the Alene Lee assignment.”
